


Let's Go Someplace Like Bolivia

by Querulousgawks



Series: Tumblr Prompts [6]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Brothers, F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 07:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4051060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Big Dick does his financial predator thing, and Mac introduces the Casablancas brothers to the concept of a buddy movie. It's lame, obviously, but Dick - might be having fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Go Someplace Like Bolivia

**Author's Note:**

> For an anonymous Tumblr prompt: Mac/Dick or Mac/Madison, childhood best friends.

The man looks nervous - all the men their father visits look nervous - and small against his battered collection of jet-skis for sale. They’re nothing like the gleaming monsters at Catalina, and Big Dick eyes them with the amused disappointment he usually saves for Cassidy. Even at twelve, Dick knows they wouldn’t make good collateral. He tries to tune out the conversation. _You’re the shark or you’re the blood in the water, boys_ , their dad always says, and Dick damn well knows which he would choose. Unlike Cass, who scowls every time their dad moves forward and the guy flinches back - scowls at their _dad_ , like he’s embarrassed for him instead of this loser.

The third time it happens, Dick elbows him into an untidy tipi of fishing rods, earning one cold stare and one uneasy one trained right on them. _Shit_ , they’ll get it for that on the way back. If only Cass wasn’t such a damn softie, or at least didn’t fall over at every little bump. His dad takes in a sharp breath.

“Why don’t you boys say hi to Cindy?” The other guy cuts in loudly, smiling at them like he doesn’t even know their dad could take everything away from him. Big Dick opens his mouth and gets cut off _again_ when a plain door in the back slams open, and Dick finds himself on the end of another glare. A short, scowly, all-in-black-weirdo-girl glare.

(He doesn’t back up a step, because he’s the shark. Also, he’s already against the wall.)

“It’s Mac,” she snaps, “and I just stacked those.”

“Pretty bad job,” he and Cass mutter in concert, and the guy at the counter laughs.

“Brothers, huh,” he says, and their dad looks at them strangely.

“Usually you’d never know it,” he mutters, turning back to the counter. Dick knows that means they lucked out, that the family shenanigans have distracted him from their punishment, but Cass flinches at the words anyway. Rolling his eyes -Cass always focuses on the wrong thing - Dick hauls his brother across the room to the girl.

"Dick Casablancas,” he says with his hand out, because he’s been practicing Big Dick’s salesman intro, his _make ‘em want more_ smile. “And this is Beaver,” because he’s just found out what it means, knows it will make his stupid little brother shake out of his funk and hit him. Maybe it will rattle this hard-eyed girl, too.

Fat chance. “That’s stupid,” Mac says irritably, “you should be Butch.” Impossibly, she gestures at Cass as she says this, then swings around to Dick to add, “and Sundance."

"You think I’m butch?” Cassidy squeaks, while Dick can’t speak at all. _Sundance_. He’ll have to kill them both, that’s all, that kind of nickname could grow legs and destroy a guy. Cass is wily and Mac looks pretty hard to kill, but he’ll figure something out.

“You haven’t seen the movie?” She practically yells it, her flat expression lost to indignation, and when the adults turn again she huffs, grabs a wrist each, and hauls them into the crappy little apartment behind the door.

So while Big Dick decides whether to destroy some guy’s livelihood, probably, his sons watch _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_ on the smallest tv Dick’s ever seen in his life. They argue about who really matches The Kid ('Sundance’ is nixed immediately) and if Mac could be Etta (Cassidy blushes, and Mac says she’d ditch them a lot earlier than Bolivia) and if you could still rob a train now that they have heat sensors and digital locks or whatever. (“Easier,” Mac says smugly, and he and Cass snort in unison again.)

It should be creepy, the way they keep lining up, but he’s distracted by how hard Mac laughs when they do it, or how she scowls at them both when they point out the parts where it gets, frankly, pretty gay. He and Cassidy aren’t even friends, they’re _nothing_ like this movie, but Mac’s wistful stare makes it easy to forget about taping Cass to his bike while their dad laughed or Cass locking him into the walk-in freezer at their mom’s house.

The credits roll and Mac says thoughtfully, like she’s forgotten anyone’s there: “ _I_ need a partner in crime."

“You should be ours,” Cass blurts out, and that’s totally the kind of thing Dick hits him for, normally, but - he doesn’t. Whatever. Maybe he wants that too.

Mac twists her mouth a little, glances away in the direction of - _shit, he forgot_ \- the store, where their dads are apparently still negotiating, and he knows he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. You shouldn’t be friends with girls anyway, probably, it was even dumber than the idea of being friends with Cass. He’d just been hypnotized by the movie, or something.

But then Mac looks determinedly back at them, and the twist resolves into a smile. “Maybe,” she says, scrambling off the couch towards the dinky TV cabinet. “Hey, have you guys ever seen _The Sting_?”


End file.
